Jack lay in the dark with Ianto curled up against him like a cat. Wrapped in his lovers arms he wondered why there was a sense of unease he wanted to ignore. It was like having someone else's shadow instead of his own. Sometimes in the dark he could forget he had lived so long, he could just close his eyes and simply be. He wondered if he was being fair to Ianto as a familiar argument seeped into his awareness. Was he stopping Ianto from falling in love with someone who could love him back.

It was the same question he kept asking himself, the same question moving though his mind. Peculating over and over in his subconsciousness until like now, it slipped into his conscious thoughts. He felt so cold lying in Ianto's bed wrapped up in a gently sleeping man. He wondered what it would take for him to fall in love with Ianto. What would he need to let go of, what would he need to do to let Ianto in. He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the world. If he was a fixed point in time couldn't he pick the point he was fixed to? And if he could would he pick Ianto? He examined that in more detail than he thought he should be capable of as Ianto's alarm flashed three o'clock at him.

If not Ianto, then who? He never went back for any of his former lovers, and he'd had a few. He didn't want to think how many, but he knew there had never been one quite like Ianto. This was becoming a familiar argument, of how fair was it to hold on when he knew they would inevitably die when he would not. Leaving him with the guilt of their death and his pain. Pain that didn't diminish. So was he holding back instead of pushing forward? He sighed softly, he didn't need to answer that, didn't want to face what it said of him. Of what it meant for Ianto who stirred beside him and opened sleepy eyes filled with the shadows of his dreams.

'It's three am again isn't it.'

Jack nodded. 'I'm sorry Ianto, I didn't think I would wake you.'

Ianto shrugged as best he could lying next to Jack. 'You didn't wake me.'

Jack snuggled into Ianto in the darkness brushing against his lover. 'Isn't this where you tell me to go back to sleep?'

Ianto smiled, he knew Jack couldn't see him smiling, but he smiled anyway. 'Not if you don't want me to.' He found courage in the darkness to whisper suggestively to Jack with his body of other things they could do instead.

'Ianto Jones are you trying to seduce me?'

Ianto moved his hand up Jack's thigh and brushed a kiss over his shoulder. 'Maybe.'

'You are something else Ianto, I'm not sure I deserve you.'

'I'm pretty sure you don't.' But I love you anyway... Left unsaid even in the darkness. Leaving Ianto to say with his body what he did not have the courage to say with words.

Jack felt a sense of, something he couldn't name, settle over him. Along with Ianto of course as he moved against him with a growing confidence Jack found very sexy. He gave himself up to Ianto and his sleepy seduction. Following where Ianto led, kissing as they touched each other in the darkness. Hands saying what words alone couldn't convey and Jack almost thought, maybe he could give himself to Ianto. If he had a heart left to give.

Ianto just closed his eyes and let his hands move over Jack. In the darkness it was safe, in the darkness he could touch Jack and not worry about what would happen next. It didn't matter who was leading when they danced like this. Although he did find that taking the lead with Jack had it's own benefits. Ianto found Jack's lower lip and traced it with the pad of his index finger, he gasped when Jack drew his finger into his mouth.

'Jack.'

Jack released Ianto's finger and pulled him into his arms. 'Ianto.' He kissed Ianto's forehead. 'It's late.'

'You always wake up around now.' He heard the sleepy tone in his own voice.

'Yeah, but you don't have to be awake Ianto, I'm the one haunted by ghosts.'

'Ghosts Sir?'

Jack exhaled slowly. 'You don't do what we do without collecting a few along the way Ianto. It's the nature of the job.'

'Three am?'

'Not everything has to make sense.'

'Whose ghosts Jack?' Ianto mumbled as he drifted asleep in Jack's arms.

He listened to Ianto's breathing as the younger man dropped into sleep, his voice quiet in the darkness. 'Everyone's.' He sighed softly as he held onto Ianto and found his own solace in sleep. However temporary it might be. As he wondered if he could have the lightness Ianto represented in the shadows of his memories, amongst the ghosts of his past. All of his pasts.